By: David Isaac – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org
Half of the country’s consumable wheat products and a third of its animal feed are supplied by Russia and Ukraine, according to numbers from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The problem of national food security, which formerly preoccupied specialists, began to penetrate the world’s consciousness with COVID-19 supply disruptions, but it’s Russia’s war with Ukraine that has given governments a jolt. Ukraine, together with Russia, supplies the world with 27% of its wheat and 53% of its sunflower oil and seeds. While some countries, like the United States, have well-developed food strategies, Israel does not, with experts telling JNS there is a lack of strategic planning, poor coordination and government turf wars. They warn that the longer the government fiddles, the worse things will get.
“Our prices are just beginning to rise. Unless the war ends quickly—and it doesn’t look like this is going to be over quickly—everyone around the world is going to be scrambling over food within their societies and in competition between states,” Aron Troen, professor at the School of Nutrition Science and the School of Public Health at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told JNS.
cont’d…